Between celebrity guests such as Bill Clinton and Mr. Rogers and televised appearances on channels including the Food Network and the History Channel -- along with simple word-of-mouth from satisfied customers -- the
Berkey Creamery
has become one of the most renowned destinations on Penn State's campus.

While plenty of visitors, both famous faces and Penn Staters, have made it to the store, far fewer venture past the ice cream counter and dining area. Tours usually aren't given in the buildings' recesses - where the famed food is made - for safety concerns. Largely, to ensure the products' safety from being contaminated, that is.

But past the store, located in the
Rodney A. Erickson Food Sciences Building
, are the ice-cold facilities used to produce the Creamery's 100 ice cream flavors, 10 frozen yogurt flavors and six sherbet flavors, along with several types of cheese, yogurt, iced tea, lemonade and, of course, milk.

The average American consumes 22 gallons of milk a year per capita, but in nine months, students drink about twice as much of the Creamery's, Manager Thomas Palchak said.

About 90 of those students work at the Creamery part time, along with 20 full-time employees. These workers think of themselves as Creamery employees, not Penn State employees, because they are so proud of their place of work, Palchak said.

Fans include not just staff and students, but some more well-known names as well.

Inside the Creamery's staff offices, a signed Michael C. Hall poster can be seen tacked against a wall. The cast of the Showtime drama "Dexter," which Hall starred on as a forensic analyst moonlighting as a serial killer, ordered a large amount of ice cream a few years ago, Palchak said.

For fun, students working at the Creamery sent with the order a picture of one of the employees wrapped in Saran wrap with a toe tag, as if she were dead, next to the ice cream. Hall loved it, and sent the employee a card and the Creamery the autographed picture.

Inside the office, there also hang newspaper clippings of former President Bill Clinton's visit to the store. Clinton holds prestige among Penn Staters not for his former occupancy of the Oval Office but for his title of the only Creamery customer to mix flavors.

The Creamery has strict rules on mixing flavors -- no one is allowed, under any circumstances -- but when Clinton visited the store in 2000, he asked for both Cherry Quist and Peachy Paterno from a student employee.

"She looked at me, and I said, 'Hey, he's the commander in chief, he can do what he wants,' " Palchak said of the encounter, laughing.

However, when Clinton made a return years later, he was told he would not be granted the courtesy again, to which he said "Oh, I know the rules," Palchak said.

Student workers also play around with other celebrity customers, including Clint Eastwood, whose shipping container of ice cream contained written messages from the employees such as "Go ahead, make my day" and "Are you feeling lucky, punk?"

The Creamery ships ice cream to celebrities and other well-knowns all over the world, as well as the promoters and agents of every performer who graces the Bryce Jordan Center's stage once a year.

The Creamery sells 750,000 bowls and cones annually as well as about 200 milkshakes per day.

During the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in downtown State College in early July, the Creamery beat its goal of selling 10,000 bowls and cones with a total of 16,270 sold, Palchak said.

The weekend also marked the debut of the Creamery's newest flavor, Birthday Cake, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the store's dairy service. Palchak said the Creamery has run out of the flavor each week since its been sold, usually within four days.